Front – Work as a team on your company inboxes. No more dirty bcc, cc or fw. No more unanswered emails. That’s how the website describes this collaborative inbox software that hopes to amaze you and email management all over again. While the website itself leaves you only with the former and may not be too descriptive, never fear that’s why we’re here. With early access to the inbox tool center for those having multiple users working on one, we were not only amazed but also blushing over the experience and ease of use. A new friend in our better customer service workflow and it’s name Front.
Collaborative features are pretty much everywhere. Basecamp for project planning, knowledge share wiki’s and even software development optimization platforms, and many more, there seems to be an outlet for collaboration no matter what you’re doing—but why is email still not progressing fast enough? Solutions do exist, but none look as beautiful and play as well as Front or they focus on just building a better experience instead of solving for collaborations. Front adds the features we’re used to in communications tools such as comments, notifications, assignments and focused feeds making it much easier to stay on top of one inbox as a team rather than turning to the old hat of BCC’ing. More than a glowing interface it’s an arsenal of tools to build a useful workflow to group email management.
Taking on the collaborative email problem is the focus of Front and they do so well by disrupting other’s in the realm that only focus on polished interfaces (Sparrow, Airmail or Mailbox for instance). All doing this by changing the way we interact, progress as a team, and be professional in our inbox experience. Keeping the conversation in the email rather than away from it as a team we become more engaged and efficient, just one of the key facets of Front.
“A shared inbox is a central place in your email client where everybody could seen not only incoming message but also what others are answering.” On Front you import you company group address (info@new-startups.com), Front then brings all your emails into its client interface so you can deal with them normally. You then invite others whom tackle replies for the group address. They install the app, and once launched they get access to the gold mine of features too. Now and forever every collaborator then sees what you see and how everyone is answering emails.
Our favorite feature was the commenting ability, that’s not to say an activity feed and email assignment’s isn’t important—it’s just commenting is so essential to our own group address. In the past we would email a colleague in the thread but not the actual sender to relay thoughts. But sadly a thread can sometimes fall on the wrong eyes, comments included; this is all prevented with in-line comments like those now possible with. Also providing a historic reference for training and management for those with larger teams. These comments provide senior staff advice, response ideas and feedback to make for a better experience for those receiving replies. Can’t believe emails were ever done without this before.
The application is still in beta and there were a few features we still wished were made available. Such as removing from original email clients inbox and being compatible with email clients other than just Google apps. But the experience itself is intuitive, beautiful and a great leap towards making collaborating on emails today a true possibility instead of a BCC nightmare.